


Drowning

by Raayide



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 22:10:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20053336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raayide/pseuds/Raayide
Summary: Diego discovers his secondary power.





	Drowning

It’s not exactly like he wants it. It’s just that he can’t see any other way out of it.

Diego pulls his uniform jacket closer to him, the cuffs rubbing on his elbows from where they’re rolled up. It’ll help identify him, he knows, and tries to pretend like that’s the only reason he’s wearing it. It doesn’t work.

The streets are cold and wet, but he doesn’t shiver. He’s strong. He won’t fall to something like a chill.

People stare at him, a ratty teenager with unkempt hair and a black eye. He looks like trouble. What he doesn’t look like, however, is Number Two, and he takes solace in that. The world moves quietly overhead. 

Maybe Mom is finding his bed empty now, the sheets pulled up and the pillows fluffed. Maybe she is telling Pogo, and then he will search the rest of the house. Maybe they will tell Father together, and his eyebrows will crease and his monocle will flash. Maybe they will find the open window, his failed attempt at an apology letter crumpled in the trash. Maybe. 

Diego stares around, bare feet scuffing against the grey stone. He is wearing his uniform, the one from the last mission. The last mission, where his knives flew wrong for the final time and hit Five. The last mission, where Father pulled him into the study and made him sit for an hour, bowing beneath the weight of his shouted words and his stutter forcing its way back up. The last mission, where Luther was celebrated as the hero that had saved the day after Two’s shortcomings. The last mission. His last mission.

It’s not exactly like he wants it. It’s just that he can’t see any other way out of it.

He knows that the river that runs through the city is deep, cold, and unforgiving. Just like he is supposed to be, like he should be, like he isn’t. He thinks of the still-bloody knife in his room, uncleaned and unsterilized, and walks on.

It runs from the city all the way to the countryside, so by the time anyone notices anything, he’ll be long gone. 

The streetlights are bright, exposing the dripping cut still on his leg and the bruises around his throat. But now, in the dark and the deep of the night, few are out, and his walk went uninterrupted. He walks past the police station, seeing the blue of the lights and the cars sitting in a waiting prowl. He slows, for a second. They were heroes, but not in the way Luther was. Though they saved people, they were cursed at for speeding tickets, for violations, spoken about in annoyed tones beside when they managed to save someone. He related to them in a cold twinge in his heart and kept walking. A scowl grew across his face as he stared at the ungrateful street.

By the time he’s guessing that either one of his siblings or Mom has found his empty room, he’s at the river. It rushes below the bridge, rocks invisible in the dark and the water pitch. The guardrail does nothing, and he easily hops over it. It only takes him a moment to walk to the middle of the bridge, balancing easily on six inches of a path. His training is useful for something. 

He stares at the water below. Luther might survive this, he thinks idly, and can’t stop himself from slipping down that train of thought. Number One was strong, and he could fight the dangerous currents, fight the pull of the inky water, fight anything in his path in order to swim to the top.

Well, maybe that’s his rebellion, then. He won’t fight. Diego closes his eyes and lets himself fall.

An hour later, he drags himself from the current, dripping and bleeding and cold. The walk back to the Academy is silent.


End file.
